The Arrival: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Paranormal Romance (5 page)

He shrugged a shoulder, looking like he couldn't care less. "Don't have too much of either," he said. "And my family is the kind of family that deserves to be destroyed."

Abby made a disgusted face. "What a horrible thing to say."

The young man shrugged again. "You don't know my family. For some of us, this isn't as bad as it could be."

"Shut up!" someone snapped from the cell across the room, and Abby and the young man turned their heads to look.

A woman, probably in her thirties, sat huddled against the wall at her back. "Just because you want your family wiped out doesn't mean the rest of us do," she said. "My daughter's down there. She's only seven. Who's going to take care of her?"

She looked on the verge of tears, and Abby averted her eyes, not wanting to watch the display of emotion. She didn't know the woman, but in the time since they'd been trapped there, Abby had seen her try to reason with the guards to release her, begging them to let her go to her daughter.

Abby hoped she would be okay.

"I'm sorry about your daughter," the young man said, and Abby was surprised to hear something like that out of his mouth. They hadn't spoken in the time they'd been there, but then there hadn't been a lot of talking amongst the prisoners. Either way, he didn't seem like the sort to be giving out heartfelt sentiments.

The woman turned her face away, shoulders shaking, and the man sighed and ran fingers through his hair.

"They're going to let us go," he said. “At the very least, they don’t want us dead.”

"How do you know that?" someone asked quickly.

"He doesn't," Abby said, rolling her eyes. "There's no way he could."

"Unless he was in league with those...things." The last word was said in a whisper, as if trying hard not to attract attention.

"I'm not," the man replied. "I just know things."

People were starting to pay attention, and despite herself, Abby was, too. There was something about people who said what they wanted to say with conviction. She had been one of those people back when she'd had a different life, and so she listened.

"What kind of things?"

He looked around, both for dramatic effect and probably to check and make sure that there wasn't anyone lurking around listening. "There's some kind of plan," he said. "Something they want to do with the Earth, probably. The day the city came down? Not the first day they showed up here."

"What do you mean?" Abby wanted to know.

"They've been walking among us. Not a lot of them because we'd notice a bunch of weirdly pretty people hanging around probably. But just enough that they could scope the place out."

"Is this some weird illuminati thing?" a woman asked, arching her eyebrow. "Like how celebrities are in a secret society and are all aliens or something?"

"No," the man said flatly. "This is real. I saw someone like them last year. I was at this bar, and this beautiful woman walks in, right? Tall, thin, hot face, long dark hair, golden eyes. At the time I was thinking that it was like winning the lottery, but she wasn't interested in me."

"Can't imagine why not," Abby muttered.

"Hey, I do alright," the man replied. "Anyway, she didn't talk to anyone all night. Just sat there in the corner with a drink she wasn't drinking, people watching. Thought maybe she was scoping out her husband while he was cheating or something, didn't want to make a fuss about it until they got home. But now I know she was one of them."

"What's the point though?" another man asked from across the room, keeping his voice down. "Why just watch us?"

"Who knows? All I know is that if they wanted to kill us, they could've done it already. They haven't done anything to hurt us, actually. We keep getting fed, and we've got all the comforts of home in a handy prison setting. They want us for something."

He had a point, Abby had to admit. She'd been waiting for their jailors to get tired of them and kill them already, but it hadn't happened. She would have said they were keeping them like pets, but the creatures barely spent any time with them at all. If they had been observing humans before, then they seemed to be done with that now. "We're hostages," she murmured, the idea occurring to her.

"There's an idea," the man agreed.

"But for what?" someone wanted to know.

"Bargaining, maybe?"

"With who?"

"I dunno. The government? 'Give us control of your planet or we'll kill these humans'. Something like that."

The man snorted. "Then we're screwed. What government would trade a handful of lives for a whole planet?"

"Hey," Abby said. "There's more than a handful of us in here."

"Whatever. It's not enough to warrant them turning over control of the planet or answering any demands. None of us are important. Not when it comes to something like that."

As depressing as it was to think about it, he had a point. They were all just people. They were sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and husbands and wives, but that didn't make them important enough to work as bargaining chips. It was hard to know if that was a good thing or not, especially considering the fact that Abby was sure the creatures who were keeping them weren't just going to let them go when their plan, if this was indeed their goal, didn't work. 'Sorry about that, won't happen again', and all that. It wasn't likely.

Which meant they would probably be killed once they'd outlived whatever potential usefulness the creatures were imagining.

"I don't want to die like this," whispered a girl in the back of Abby's cell. She couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. "I don't want to die here."

"None of us do."

"We need to find out what it is they want."

The man who didn't seem to be able to take anything seriously was named Nathan. He’d been a student before everything had gone up in flames. In medical school, which honestly shocked Abby right down to her center, because he didn’t seem like the type who would be able to focus long enough to make it through something like that. Apparently he had a serious side, though none of them had ever seen it.

In some ways, he was like a breath of fresh air. He kept them amused and from getting too serious when things seemed like they weren’t ever going to get any better. Abby was pretty sure one of the women who shared the cell with them had a crush on Nathan. It seemed odd that something like that could even still be happening when it felt like the world was coming to an end.

One night, when they were all settling down to sleep after being given their dinner, one of the guards came marching over to the bars of the cell. Everyone inside sat up, taking notice and trying to figure out what was happening.

“Quiet,” the guard snapped, but it wasn’t a harsh sound. “You.” He pointed to Nathan. “Will come with me.”

Nathan arched an eyebrow, but he unfolded himself from the cushion he’d been sitting on and got to his feet, walking over to the bars that kept them in. “What can I do for you?” he asked, lips twisted into a smirk.

“You can keep your mouth shut and follow me,” the guard replied, and he led him out of the cell and then out of the room entirely.

“What’s
that
about?” someone murmured, and Abby was just as lost as the rest of them. Nothing like that had ever happened before.

They’d been here for months now, doing nothing, learning nothing, and maybe it was finally time for this holding to stop.

Abby couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.

Chapter Three: Engage

"You can't be serious."

"I can, and I am," Sorrin said, not pausing in his packing for a second.

"Alright, that's fair, let me rephrase. You can't do this."

"Same answer."

Poola groaned and dragged fingers through her long, red hair. "Sorrin, do you know what you're asking me to do here? Why can't you just take your own ship?"

He shook his head, finally glancing up at her. She was an old friend, one of the former members of the Queen's Men who had left before the Camadors had been able to destroy most of them in one single battle. Now she worked in private security, though Sorrin knew for a fact that she had kept all of her contacts in the warrior band and still sometimes had access to the resources of someone who served a Senator.

"It would never make it," Sorrin said shortly.

"Of course it wouldn't! It's Earth. Do you have any idea how far away that is?"

Sorrin gave her a flat look. As if he hadn't spent the last several days calculating the distance between here and there and how long it would take him to cross into a warp path that would get him there fast enough. As if he hadn't planned every single aspect of this trip already.

"Alright, stupid question," she said and then sighed, crossing to rest a hand on his shoulder. "Sorrin. Stop a moment."

"What, Poola? Either you're going to help me or you're not, and if you're not, then I need to go find someone who will. So I don't have time for whatever it is you're trying to do."

"I'm trying to get you to listen to me! I know you feel responsible for this--"

"I
am
responsible for this."

"You're
not
, though, but let me finish. This isn't your fight, Sorrin. No one's heard from any Camador in years. No one knows what they've been doing or where they've been hiding. They could have alliances, better weapons, or stronger shields. You have no idea what you're trying to walk into here. And even if you did, you're just one person! How do you expect to fight them when..." She trailed off, but Sorrin knew what she was going to say.

"When I failed the last time?"

"
Everyone
failed the last time. It wasn't only you."

He shook his head at her. No one understood. Very few of the people who had been there were left alive, and no one had the same drive that he had. His friends, his companions, his family had all been killed by these smiling monsters, and no one understood that he wouldn't be able to rest until they were dead.

"It's only me now," he said. "And I have to do this."

"
No
, you don't!" she insisted. "You can leave them to it. Whatever they're doing on Earth of all places is probably years in the making at this point. For all we know, they've been hiding there this whole time. And what are you going to do, shuffle in and tell them to stop? Get revenge on an entire race of people by yourself. You're not thinking clearly, and you know it. For years, you've been driven by this...this hate, this need for vengeance, and it's going to get you killed, Sorrin. I don't want more of my friends to end up dead."

There was a twinge of remorse from him at those words. The people that they had lost in the first battle had been Poola's friends, too. They'd been people that the pair of them had trained with, served with, fought with, and now they were gone. To tell the truth, Sorrin wasn't sure he was going to come back from this self-assigned mission, and to be even more honest, he didn't care. This wasn't about him or his survival. This was about finally settling this once and for all.

"Poola," he said softly. "I understand what you're trying to say."

"But it doesn't matter." It wasn't a question.

"No," Sorrin said honestly.

She sighed again, tugging at her hair in her frustration with him. Sorrin let her do whatever she needed to, including punching him hard in the arm. He didn't even flinch, just continued to hold her gaze.

The noise of defeat she made had him smiling just a bit. "Fine. Fine, you stubborn-" Poola huffed. "I'll see what I can do. It won't be pretty or luxurious, nothing like what you were used to back in the day, but it'll get you to Earth in one piece. I can't vouch for you getting back, though."

"That's fine," he said. "I know someone who can help me make sure it's sound for the journey there, and I'll worry about getting back when the time comes."

"Right." She was clearly not convinced that he cared about getting back at all. Sorrin couldn't blame her for that. "Right. Give me two days. Or is that not quick enough, Your Impatience?"

Sorrin reached out and clasped her arm in his hand. "It's fine. Thank you, Poola."

"Don't. I'm not exactly thrilled to be party to helping to send you to your death." Poola hesitated for a moment and then spoke again. "Are you going to say goodbye to Halphia?"

That was the question he had been wrestling with for the entire time that he'd known where the Camadors were. It had been a long week and a half so far, full of scouring the news for any other information he could get and gathering the supplies he would need for the trip. A ship was all that was standing between him and making the journey now, and so he'd contacted Poola to see if she could help him. He hadn't expected her to show up on his doorstep demanding answers before she did anything to help.

He had, however, expected her to bring up Halphia. The Senator of Gollen Par had been more than just his boss and the political leader of the place he'd called home. Halphia had been...it felt odd to call her his best friend, but there wasn't another term he could think of that fit.